


Sawdust Best

by lookninjas



Series: Children's Work [14]
Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-07
Updated: 2018-01-07
Packaged: 2019-03-07 23:42:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13445895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lookninjas/pseuds/lookninjas
Summary: It isn't babysitting, exactly.  But Rey needs a distraction, and Han needs a distraction, and if she actually knows what she's doing (and if it reminds him, maybe, of another pair of helping hands long ago), well.  Then why not?





	Sawdust Best

**Author's Note:**

> For the prompt: "or! how do Rey and Han get along? do they talk about fixing up cars and stuff? " I am not especially knowledgeable about cars and I don't think Ben and Rey had much time to play backyard mechanic during their lives Up North, so I let them refinish furniture instead.

It isn’t babysitting.

It is, maybe, a distraction. A little. At first. Not just for Rey, though – hell, Han doesn’t like it much, either. Poe whisks Ben off to interviews and therapy visits and all kinds of meetings and Ben always comes back shaky and pale and unable to deal with people touching his back, and Han doesn’t know the whole story, but neither does Rey and anyway that’s what makes it worst, the not knowing. Lets the mind wander down all sorts of roads, and Rey’s mind is a lot sharper than Han’s, it can find all kinds of roads he can’t even dream of. 

So, yeah, Han doesn’t just invite her down to the woodshop in the basement because he needs an extra set of hands and hers look small enough for some of the detail work he’s, honestly, a little shaky on.

At least not the first time.

After that, though –

“We didn’t have a lot of furniture,” she says one day, out of the blue, when Han’s been watching her carefully sand the old varnish off an antique bureau for probably longer than he should (and maybe, maybe, remembering a letter he got ages ago, long after he’d lost hope of seeing one – a picture of a kid with big ears zipping a little girl into a pink jacket). "You know, when we moved into the house, it wasn’t furnished, where the apartments had been, and uh… I mean, I know we could’ve gone to Maz but Ben never did like it much, you know – I mean, no offense, but I think it was weird, for him, to –“

"It’s fine,” Han says, because Ben’s his son, and he knows. He knows. 

Hell, if it’d been him, he wouldn’t have taken it either. If his parents had had any money. Which they didn’t. But if they had.

“So we found what we could, you know – yard sales, Salvation Army, things like that – and then we… cleaned it up. There were some tools in the garage that the landlords let us use, and so we just. Ben showed me how. He, um. I imagine he learned from you, over the years.”

Ben started trying to toddle down the stairs almost as soon as he could walk. When he was two, he climbed the baby gate and toppled down the other side, rolled a few steps. Han’s not sure how he heard him over the sound of the lathe. Ben wasn’t even crying yet when Han got to him.

“Guess so,” Han says, and musters a smile. "Yeah, he – He picked up a couple things, watching. Once he was tall enough to reach the tools, anyway. Growth spurt took him a while. He got there, though. He’s, uh – Not gonna lie, it’s a little weird, now. Craning my neck to see him. I remember, he used to have to stand on a –“

Rey’s face is uncomfortably soft, pleased – misty, maybe. Han coughs, rubs the back of his neck.

"But yeah. I taught him a few things. It’s good to – Good to see he’s passed it on, you know.”

“Yeah, he did,” Rey says, still that same soft smile, sawdust in her hair and sandpaper in her hand. Han never really wanted to be a grandfather, and he knows for a fact he’s too young to have a grandchild this old, but all the same, he thinks he can work with this. Then Rey’s eyes pick up a different sort of sparkle, her smile shifts, and she says, “So. How long was it, exactly, that he had to stand on chairs to help you? Just. Out of curiosity. Was it six, or eight, or –”

“I think eleven,” Han says, and her grin widens, and his shoulders relax. "I’ve got pictures, actually – Or Leia does, somewhere, probably up in the study. Once we wrap up here, if you want, I could probably find them. I know where she puts things. I sort of – I can usually find things. Sometimes.“

"If you could,” Rey says, still grinning, and goes back to her sanding.

“Yeah,” Han says, and doesn’t mention the shoebox with the pictures of her in it. Twelve of them, one for almost every year. "Yeah, I’m sure I could.“


End file.
